STEPHAN Louw is the personification of patience and perseverance. The Mariental-born athlete, who grew up at Stampriet, has jumped an impressive 8,24 metres in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2008, which is the current Namibian long-jump record.
However, success didn’t come easy for the easygoing athlete, who also impressed in the 100m sprint at high school.
Louw says it required months and years of hard training before success came to his door, and this without a coach.
“I was always a jumper. Before school I used to jump off the roof at the house, landing on the grass. It was always a challenge for me to see how high I could jump . . . I think the jumping ability was there, it obviously kind of migrated into long jump.
“I was also good at high jump,” Louw says.
He says before success there is always a period in one’s career during which you feel like giving up.
“I have the same stories as others before achieving success. After school, with a lot of injuries and not having a coach, I almost gave up, especially after I made what turned out to be a very bad decision to pursue my career in the United States in 1997.
“I was only jumping 7,50m at the time, and I really wanted to qualify for the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur in 1998, but the required height was 7,65m. I jumped 7,60m in school, but I was negatively affected by injuries and I had no coach at all,” he says.
Louw says at some stage he hitchhiked on a cattle truck to Durban, South Africa, where he went to see a coach who showed him a few high-jump techniques.
He then returned to Namibia where applied his new tricks.
Louw first went to the African u20 Junior Championships in Algeria, before he participated in the All African Championships in 1993.
He says he was only chosen because there were no other good long jumpers in the country at the time.
He eventually jumped 7,65m at a final qualifying event to earn his ticket to Kuala Lumpur, which was a turning point in his colourful athletics career.
He gained a reputable seventh spot at the Commonwealth Games, with a distance of 7,60m. Then followed the 2001 Universiade Games in Beijing, China, where he clinched a silver medal after jumping 8,04m for a well-deserved second place.
Louw also participated in the 4×100 relay at the same event with gifted sprinters like Sherwin Vries, Thobias Akwenye and Benedictus Botha.
Unfortunately the Namibian team missed out on a medal spot and had to be content with a fourth place in 39.48 seconds.
Louw followed this up with a bronze at the African Championships in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2008, with 7.98m, while his Olympic Games dream ended in disappointment as he could only finish 13th in Berlin, Germany, at 7.93m.
He had a disastrous World Championships in Berlin in 2009, his last top-flight international event, which saw him finishing 30th at 7.74m, but he finished slightly better at 12th place at the 2006 African Championships in Bambous, Mauritius.
WORK AND FAMILY LIFE
The two-time World Championships participant is married to Jacqueline, and has two children.
Louw has opened up a restaurant-cafe and has several businesses at Potchefstroom, in South Africa.
“Life right now is very difficult everywhere around the world. There is a fine line between trying to make money and using that money to buy freedom to spend as a family or with your children. You can make a lot of money, but you have to sacrifice your time to try and make more.
“You don’t want to spend your whole life making money and neglecting your duties as a father,” he says.
Louw says ending up at Potchefstroom was never his dream, as he has always hoped to settle down at a bigger place, but it worked out better than expected.
He says he still coaches athletes at the town’s university, because he loves it and is out to shape future Olympic and world champions.
Louw says his biggest challenge is making time for his family.
“Having to provide water to drink and food to eat, and to have a comfortable home is the biggest challenge I am facing right now. To create space and time to be with my loved ones and to see places and create wonderful memories is top of my priority list,” he says.
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